bp on behalf of its co-venturers in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Shah Deniz and South Caucasus Pipeline projects – TPAO, SOCAR, SGC, LUKOIL, NICO, MOL, Equinor, INPEX, ExxonMobil, ITOCHU, Eni, TotalEnergies, ONGCVidesh – today announced the successful completion of an educational project for local schools.

The project aimed to help schools instil the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and business leadership in children starting from school ages.

The scope of the project included development of learning materials on basic principles of business and entrepreneurship for the 8th and 9th grades of schools. In addition, as part of the programme, a teachers’ guidebook was prepared for training trainers for the course as well as for schoolteachers.

As part of the project, some 34 teachers from across Azerbaijan were trained as trainers who in their turn trained around 600 STEAM teachers across the country equipping them with essential knowledge and effective pedagogical tools for teaching the basics of entrepreneurship at schools. The training programmes included such topics as fostering entrepreneurial mindsets and skills, developing business models, generating business ideas, exploring social entrepreneurship, financial literacy, creative thinking and problem solving.

The trained teachers then conducted sessions and other learning activities with around 8,000 students at 150 STEAM schools across 51 districts of the country. Through interactive sessions, the students were specifically guided toward developing business plans, analyzing markets and identifying business opportunities.

Addressing the event, Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, bp's vice president for the Caspian region, said: “The project is about starting to introduce the essentials and basic knowledge of modern and innovative entrepreneurship to schoolchildren. It is also about starting to build confidence in them in their ability to lead changes and innovations, to generate ideas and find practical ways to realize them. These are the skills every student will need in the rapidly changing world to select their career paths and build their future. We hope the teachers who have been trained as part of the project will succeed in building the confidence their students need to set their future career goals and the determination to achieve those goals.”

The total value of this 12-month project was 74,450 AZN ($43,800).

The project was implemented by the Junior Achievement Azerbaijan Public Union.